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HomeMy WebLinkAboutA7 r ^, P. 5 I. (a) I am asking for a variance that I would be allowed to plant arborvitae seedlings instead of 6 foot arborvitae plants. Prior to building our storage facility this land was dormant and was being used primarily as a local unauthorized dog park. Local apartment renters were using our land walking their dogs and leaving their byproducts behind with no regard or respect for our property even though it was posted. Since owning this property we have improved the appearance and its taxable value. By building a storage system we have further increased the taxable value of this property without increasing demands on the city infrastructure such as water, sewer and streets. In fact, the city's overflow during heavy rains drains off the street when the street intakes cannot handle the volume of water onto our property not the other way around. My wife and I took on this risk with no tax subsidies or abatements which are often times offered to larger out of town businesses and local developers. Our property not only has not devalued the area, in my opinion, we have added value to the adjacent property owners. We have received referrals from all the adjacent property management companies. When renters are looking at apartments it is a definite advantage to have a storage system this accessible. P. 6 1. (b) i. The unique circumstances of our situation is we purchased this property almost 20 years ago at which time it was zoned industrial which would have allowed mini storage and that was part of the reason we purchased the property. Sometime in the early 2000's the city went through a general rezoning process and this entire zoned industrial area of Reliable and Florida got rezone to today's zoning which is Neighborhood Commercial which does not allow for mini storage. This was the reason why we had to go through the variance process in the first place. Looking back with all the obstacles that have been presented and we have overcome we might have been better off financially selling this property and building outside of the city limits as other local business people have chosen to do in Boone County. We decided to stay the course because we felt this was a good use of this property in this part of Ames. P. 6 1. (b) ii. Our property is very unique. It sits adjacent to the old Dough Boy elevator and behind the Story County Maintenance building. So in our front yard we have a salt and sand pile along with road graders, large dump trucks and accessory blade equipment. This is very atypical for Neighborhood Commercial properties. I have included pictures of the Fareway Grocery Store, McFarland Clinic and the Car Wash behind Casey's all located on north Stange. These are all commercial businesses located in a major traffic area with high exposure. These businesses are all adjacent to high density residential apartment complexes such as our site. These sites all are similar except for one thing and that is our site is definitely NOT high traffic or high exposure. We are a destination site. Our customers find our location through internet marketing not from drive by traffic. Another point I want to make about these three sites is they have all been in existence for approximately six years and the pictures I have included show there are only a couple of their arborvitae plants that are six foot tall. The ones that are six foot tall are dead and the majority of the plants on all three sites are primarily three to four foot tall after six years. So I can only assume these plants have grown some in those six years, so why should we plant six foot arborvitae when these businesses that have gone through the same process have not. In fact through my investigation I found out Fareway has been operating with a temporary certificate of occupancy since 2009. P. 7 1 (b) iii. When building our facility we took into consideration the colors of the surrounding building. We tried to make our facility blend into the area and give the area what is termed a "campus look". We chose colors for our brick, siding and storage doors that matched our neighbors. Many storage buildings use bright colors such as red, blue, orange, green and yellow so they are very noticeable by drive by traffic. Again, because we did not depend on drive by traffic we chose to be more low key. I have provided pictures of our site. In fact I have received several comments from customers that we appear to be parking garages for the apartment buildings. P. 7 (c)The spirit of the ordinance is being met in the fact that I hired CGA to develop my site plan so we met all the city requirements. I have included a copy which was approved by the city. I have also included an enlargement of the legend. When I read this my site plan shows six inch minimum planting bed, but at maturity had to be minimum 6 foot. I understood this to mean the plants at maturity had to be at least six foot tall minimum. I did not understand that they had to be six foot tall when I planted them. I knew Fareway, McFarland Clinic and the car wash had arborvitae plants because we do business with all three locations. I could not remember how tall the plants were when planted. I knew before planting my arborvitae plants that those sites did not have six foot plants. I have visited with the state forestry nursery along with half a dozen plant nurseries in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. They all agree the smaller the plant at introduction the better the chance of survival because it will use all its energy building a strong root system. The larger the plant the more energy is spent to maintain the plant and many times the root system has been damaged through the transplant process. This is evident at the McFarland Clinic site. All their plants appear to be dead or dying. This is also due to the care of the plants once they are transplanted. I selected a species of arborvitae that will be 15-20 foot tall at maturity. I also want this type of plant because they not only will make our site look different from other storage sites in the area year round they will act as a snow fence in the winter. I want a good site. If I am spending the money I want to do it one time and do it the right way and not have to duplicate my time and money. These plants will grow better than larger plants because they will build a good strong root system and I have been told these plants can live 70 or more years when established correctly. Side note: I have planted trees at this site which at maturity will have forty foot plus canopy to meet city codes and all the nurseries have told me they may live maybe ten years. They have only ten feet of space with hard surfaced parking lots on both sides. Where are they to get their moisture and nutrients? But I planted them anyway and I know they won't survive, where is the sense in this. No one comes around later when they are dead, but the time, energy and money has all been wasted to meet the building code. Maybe it's time to relook at certain situations and use some common sense when it comes to the landscape codes. P. 8 (d) Justice will be done by granting this variance. I have the signatures of the three adjacent apartment buildings management companies. They see nothing wrong with the plants that are in place. I have invested ten weeks and 5000 gallons of water with vitamins suggested by the nursery I purchased my plants from to help stimulate root growth. Our buildings were completed in mid-October and I was delayed opening because of these plants and my COO was not issued. I went eight days applying for a temporary certificate of occupancy. On the eighth day I spent five hours in city hall running around trying to get it signed off or I would not have received it that day. During that eight day period I had ten renters I turned away, because I would not risk them renting without the COO in place. I try to follow the rules. The industry says a renter is worth approximately$1000/year. So by that standard we lost $10,000.00. Please don't make us redo what we have already done with good intent. I merely interpreted the code differently. I was looking at the end product and we want to own the premier storage facility in Ames that's just good business.